Hear us Roar

Our guest this week is Evelyn Ann Casey (Candlewood, Three Towers Press, February 2025). Evelyn's debut, set in the 1970's, is considered historical fiction and we commiserate about how old that makes us feel. Then we discuss how Flea Bag's second season with its "hot priest" theme helped her see deeper into her own novel which centers around both a predatory priest and a forbidden love story. Listen to hear her take on Catholic vs. Christian-based small presses and what a bookseller taught her about what shelf her novel actually belonged on (hint: it wasn't romance).  
 
Evelyn Ann Casey writes stories filled with grace and gumption. Her writing asks hard questions yet reflects hope in the darkest hours. A love of language and storytelling grew from her Chicago roots in a multi-ethnic neighborhood filled with Irish brogues, Sicilian music, and the banter of Jewish delis. Evelyn worked in government relations in Milwaukee and Madison before managing outreach programs in healthcare at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. When not exploring locales near and far with her husband, Evelyn attends music and theatre venues as often as possible and volunteers with community reading programs.
To learn more about Evelyn, click here.

This week's podcast guest is Angela Douglas (Every Fall, indie published, January 2025). Initially published by Rising Action, Angela bought her rights back to her debut and is now releasing her second book as well, The Mentor. We discuss having to take mental-health breaks during the writing because of more serious subject matter, and how many of the critiques she got back from beta readers and editors suggested changing different things, making revision tricky. We explore what's different about publishing in Canada, how she advises new authors to not say yes to everything to avoid burnout and she describes her new venture, Eyes on Books, where peers share marketing successes and missteps and learn from each other's experiences.
 
Angela Douglas is an award-winning Canadian author of psychological thrillers, based in the Okanagan. Her debut novel, Every Fall, has been recognized by the Crime Writers of Canada Excellence Awards, the Canadian Book Club Awards, the Pen Craft Awards, and the National Indie Excellence Awards. She is a member of International Thriller Writers, Crime Writers of Canada, the Women's Fiction Writers Association and Sisters in Crime. She is also the founder of Eyes on Books, a Book Marketing Hub. When she isn't working or hanging out with her family, she hides in her studio, writing. Her next psychological thriller, The Mentor, comes out in Fall 2026.
To learn more about Angela, click here.

Our guest this week is Mary Hansen (The Traveling Archivist Eastern Oregon, Luminare Press, January 2025). We delve into the differences between a librarian and an archivist, how Mary thinks of archival research as a 'creative act', how a PBS documentary provided the inspiration for her debut, and the positives of working with a book coach who doesn't try to change your story. Then she discusses how she initially used SubStack as a safe, low-profile rehearsal space for testing out her unique voice and how her character's rich back story became her follow-up novel.  
 
Mary B. Hansen is a writer and archivist who understands the power of stories and information to transform lives, including her own. As a writer, Mary uses story to facilitate change and deepen emotion. As an archivist, she sees information, archival and current, as a tool for finding our place in the larger world. Mary is a Certified Archivist with a Master's in Library and Information Science. She is currently focused on writing about archives rather than working in them. She lives and writes in Portland, Oregon with her partner, 2 cats and a very smart Australian Shepherd.
 To learn more about Mary, go to https://marybhansen.com/

This week's guest is Wanda Penalver Bevan (The Rains of Wishton, The Book Reality Experience, February 2025). We discuss writing dual timelines, point of view, and what it's like to write a "story within a story". Wanda describes how she used an existing book club as beta readers before her book was published, her experiences with a hybrid press, and her "try everything and find out what sticks" approach to marketing.
 
WANDA PENALVER BEVAN was born in Ithaca, New York. A graduate of Northwestern University, she's worked as an actress, legal assistant, event manager, and hotel industry professional. She's the songwriter of Little Girl, a tribute to the youngest victim of the 2011 Tucson shooting that wounded former Arizona congresswoman, Gabby Giffords, and her poem America's Child is on display at the Oklahoma City National Memorial honoring those who perished in the federal building bombing in 1995. Her latest book, The Rains of Wishton (2025) is the second in the Wishton series, following her first novel, Their Souls Met in Wishton, (2016).  She is also the author of A Slow Dance in Memoriam and Other Poems, (2022), a poetry anthology. After three decades in southern California, Wanda now lives in Phoenix.  
To learn more, go to Wanda's website https://www.wandaswayiswrite.com/about

Our guest this week is Lisa Montanaro (Everything We Thought Was True, Red Adept, January 2025). We discuss how Lisa taps into her background as an actress to "method act" her novels as she writes, including acting out scenes and writing scenes out of order based on her personal headspace that day. In the publication arena, she points out pluses and minuses to going traditional but with a smaller press and the differences between writing and marketing non-fiction and fiction. Finally we examine the challenges of distribution to bookstores and why book clubs are the best.
 
Lisa Montanaro is part no-nonsense Italian American New Yorker and part sunny Californian. Her background encompasses performer, teacher of the Deaf, lawyer, productivity consultant, writer coach, speaker, and author. Lisa's debut novel, Everything We Thought Was True, published by Red Adept Publishing, drew inspiration from her family history and examines the corrosive nature of secrets—those we keep from ourselves, from each other, and from society. It won Best New Fiction/Debut in the 2025 American Writing Awards and first place for LGBTQ Fiction in the 2024 International Firebird Book Awards, among other awards. Lisa has served as webinar host for WFWA since 2019 and is a passionate member of its Diversity and Inclusion committee. When not writing, you can find her cycling and hiking with her veterinarian husband, gardening, and chasing after her rescue dog. Lisa has enjoyed living snow-free since 2012 in Northern California, where she's made it her mission to sample the wines of the region.
 
To learn more about Lisa and subscriber to hew newsletter Prosecco & Prose, click here.